Grape Expectations: A Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery With Recipes

by Tamar Myers

  “Well, well,” I said, giving the two inspectors the onceover, “look who we have here.” There was no need for a twice-over, because I knew both men very well. Albert had been a classmate of mine from kindergarten through high school, and Patrick I’d once hired to do odd jobs on the farm before I converted it to an inn.

  “Magdalena,” Albert said in acknowledgment. It was not the first time my name had been used as a swear word.

  Patrick looked startled to see me. “What are you doing here, Miss Yoder?”

  “I came to retrieve my sister’s dog.”

  “I don’t see a dog,” Albert said. “I do, however, see a rat.”

  “Don’t be silly, dear. Rats are much bigger than that.”

  “I’m still writing it up as a rat.”

  The cooks, recent immigrants from China, spoke nary a word of English and appeared quite unperturbed by the commotion. (The waitresses, by the way, convey their orders by circling pictures of the various dishes.) In fact, they seemed much more interested in Shnookums. Lee, the head cook, had one eye on the mutt and another on a pot of similar size.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I said, and waggled a finger in warning. “Susannah,” I continued, “get Shnookums and then leave, will you please?”

  “But Sis—”

  I would have repeated my request, but Wanda was already in the doorway, her anxious face trained on me. A good show, like a tree falling in the forest, must have an audience to be fully appreciated.

  “Very well, stay.” I turned back to Albert, who appeared to be the one in charge. “Does the Board of Health know about your record, dear?”

  His face colored. “Excuse me?”

  “Car theft, wasn’t it? No, it was armed robbery. How silly of me—it was both! You stole Jenny Bonecutter’s mom’s car and knocked off a 7-Eleven in Bedford. If I remember right, your haul was less than twenty dollars.”

  “Dude,” Patrick said, “is she telling the truth?”

  “Forsooth, the dudette doth tell the truth, Patrick. We lost the homecoming game on account of our star quarterback was behind bars.”

  Albert was not amused. “I was a minor, Magdalena. My record’s been expunged.”

  “Ah, so it has. Which brings me back to my original question: did you tell the Board of Health?”

  “That ain’t none of your business. Besides, it don’t change nothing. Patrick here can write Wanda up, even if I get canned.”

  “Now see what you did?” Wanda wailed.

  “Never fear, Wanda dear,” I said through gritted teeth. So much for the thanks we get for trying to help others. “Patrick won’t be writing up anything. Unless, of course, he wants the whole world to know what I caught him doing in my barn one fine day.”

  Patrick had flame red hair, which clashed horribly with the blotches of magenta that spread across his boyish cheeks. “I been thinking, Albert, and this here ain’t no rat It’s gotta be some kind of dog. Look what it’s trying to do to the dust mop.”

  We all looked. It wasn’t a pretty picture. I’m sure that somewhere in the Bible it’s listed as a sin.

  “And anyway, this kitchen ain’t really that bad. Ain’t nothing like Gerber’s Grill, that’s for sure.”

  “Yeah,” Albert said, and stashed the clipboard under his arm. “We got ourselves a bigger fish to fry.” He laughed loudly and poked Patrick with his elbow. “Grill— fry. Get it?”

  “You’re too witty by half,” I said, and pointed to the door.

  When they were gone Susannah grabbed her loathsome lothario and stuffed him down the front of her ghoulish garb. Meanwhile I stood guard over the kitchen until I heard the front door close behind the health inspectors. Then I turned my attention to Wanda.

  “You don’t need to thank me, dear. But a free meal now and then would be nice.” I flashed her an impish, albeit somewhat gummy, smile.

  “In a pig’s ear!”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “There wouldn’t have been any trouble to begin with if your crazy sister hadn’t brought that creature into my restaurant.”

  “I’m not crazy,” Susannah said. “I’m eccentric.”

  “You have to be Southern to be eccentric. You, Mrs. Stoltzfus, are every bit as loony as a lake in Maine. Just like that killer husband of yours.”

  “How dare you!” I said, my hackles hiked. “No one gets away with attacking my flesh and blood—except for moi.”

  “What are you going to do, Magdalena? Kill me like you killed that woman from Grape Expectations? Is murder now your family pastime?”

  Wanda’s taunts were too much. And after all I had just done for her! Sometimes a gal can get pushed too far, even a good Christian woman like myself.

  “It was me,” I said.

  “What was you?”

  27

  “I’m the one who put that hot dog in your beehive.”

  Wanda turned the color of raw bratwurst. “What did you say?”

  “I slipped the weenie down your bun.”

  The restaurateur had to brace herself on the edge of the sink to keep from falling. I can’t say as I blame her. I’d done a truly horrible thing; perhaps the worst thing I’ve ever done. Even worse than inadvertently marrying a bigamist It was the same homecoming game Patrick had spent behind bars. I was sitting in the bleachers, directly behind but a tier higher than Wanda. She’d always been mean to me, hanging out as she did with Mary Jane Yocum, my chief tormentor. In those days, every girl, not just Wanda, wore her hair in an elaborate beehive held together with tons of bobby pins and gallons of hair spray. But Wanda’s beehive was by far the largest and most elaborate.

  My date that evening was Oscar Mayer. For the record, I had every intention of minding my own business, but even before I had a chance to sit down—hot dog and cola in hand—the girls started in with their jokes about yours truly. Wanda was the loudest. My revenge was both delicious and served up warm. When everyone’s attention was focused on the opening kickoff, I slipped my wiener from its bun and poked it down a hole I’d observed in the top of my tormentor’s hive. The astonishing thing was that no one noticed.

  For days Wanda paraded up and down the halls of Hernia High with a decaying meat by-product in her hair. The smell in our homeroom grew rank, but this was a school after all, and one filled with adolescent boys. Not to mention Yoder with the Odor. It was only when flies, not bees, began to buzz around Wanda’s hive that Mr. Pruett, our physics teacher, sent her to the nurse. Later, word got out that when the nurse extracted what was left of poor Oscar, Wanda became hysterical, convinced that it was her brain that had been removed. (Lest one feel too sorry for Wanda Hemphopple—née Hormelheimer—she was the schoolyard bully who sat on other girls’ lunches and wrote wicked things about them with her lipstick on the toilet stalls.) Her IQ plummeted, along with her self-confidence. Alas, this wonderful improvement was short-lived. When Mrs. Bumblegrass, the guidance counselor, finally persuaded Wanda that the gray matter she’d lost was merely a hot dog and not her brain, Wanda instantly reverted to her obnoxious self.

  “It was you?” Wanda said, her voice trembling.

  “ Twas I. But I’ll have you know, I’ve already paid for it. I can still recall how hungry I was that night, because said weenie took my last nickel.”

  “Wow, Sis,” Susannah said. “I never knew you could be so cool. You’ve got to admit, Wanda, that what Mags did took a lot of nerve.”

  Wanda raised her hand as if to strike me but instead patted my back. “Your sister is right; I’ve got to hand it to you, Magdalena. You’re one in a million. Nobody else had the nerve to stand up to me in those days.”

  “Nobody else had a death wish.”

  “Too true. What surprises me is that you still have it.”

  “I do? Oh—yeah. You must be referring to the bacon I dropped in there a few minutes ago.”

  “Bacon?” Wanda bent over and swatted at her elaborate do. Sure enough, after a few seconds it fell out, along with
a key, a pencil eraser, a small bottle of antibacterial cleaner, a wad of gum, a phone card, three pennies, and a nickel.

  “Magdalena, you’re going to pay for this!”

  “I’m only responsible for the bacon. But hey, you better check out that nickel. It’s an Indian Head. It could be worth a pretty penny, unlike those pennies that are pretty common—you know what I mean.”

  “I know that if you don’t leave these premises by the time I count to ten, I’m going to wring that scrawny neck of yours and then have you arrested for trespassing.” Relieved of any vestigial guilt and admired by my sister, I felt lighter than air. Thus I had no problem sailing out of the Sausage Barn with my dignity intact Susannah, her pooch restored safely to her bosom, swished happily along behind me like a three-dimensional shadow. Our meal, alas, was left behind at the Sausage Barn.

  I told Susannah that I might take her to see Melvin, if she accompanied me on my errands. Given that the woman was unemployed and the love of her life was behind bars, she had no excuse not to go with me. I only had two rules—no smoking in my car, and four-legged creatures should be neither seen nor heard.

  We drove in amiable silence the rest of the way into Bedford. Either luck was with me or my guardian angel woke up from her nap, because I found a parking spot just across the street from the Bacchustellis’ condo.

  “You going to wait here, or come with?” I said to Susannah. “Is he cute?”

  “Is who cute?”

  “The man you’re going to see.”

  “His sister-in-law just died, for crying out loud!”

  “I’m a widder woman. I can give him comfort.” Her words were weighted, heavy enough to topple over on a soft mattress if given the chance.

  “You are not a widow woman!”

  “Jeez Louise, you don’t have to get so bent out of shape.” “Susannah, you’re my sister and I love you very much, but if anyone else made such an insensitive comment, I’d be all over them like crust on a pie.”

  “What if it was a pumpkin pie, and only had one crust?”

  “Stop it!”

  “Oh, I know what your problem is. You’re having man troubles again.”

  “I most certainly am not—and what do you mean by ‘again’?”

  “Whenever you and that hunky doctor of yours fight, you get all prickly.”

  “You would too if you couldn’t find anyone to perform the ceremony— I mean, I do not!”

  “So that’s it. A silly ceremony is all that’s standing in the way of happily ever after?”

  “I’d hardly call it silly. Do you know that he actually had the nerve to ask me to convert?”

  “Cool.”

  “How can you say that? You know how I feel about being a Christian.”

  “Yeah, but I think it would be cool to have a Jewish sister. Moses had one. Jacob had a couple, didn’t he? Heck, maybe even Jesus had one.”

  “It isn’t going to happen, dear.”

  “And he isn’t going to become a Christian either, is he?”

  “Not a chance:”

  “Well, Sis, you can’t have it all.”

  “Who says?” I wailed.

  “You’ve got to stop wailing, Magdalena. Only sirens wail.”

  “That’s not true at all. They don’t call that wall in Jerusalem the Siren Wall.”

  “Whatever.” I’m sure my sister didn’t have a clue as to what I meant.

  “Is happiness too much to ask?” It was, of course, a rhetorical question.

  “For you, maybe. You’re too picky, Mags. If happiness came along and sat right beside you, you’d tell it the seat was taken.”

  “I would not.”

  “You overanalyze, and you constantly moralize.”

  “I do not.”

  “You’ve got a hunky guy who’s deeply in love with you, and yet you have to think of ways to complicate the situation.”

  “That isn’t so.”

  “Oh, yeah? Then why don’t you just live in sin?”

  “Because it’s wrong.”

  I got out of the car, and much to my surprise, Susannah did as well. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but it seemed like she needed my company. Even if she didn’t, it was gratifying to know that she preferred me to my car’s stereo.

  “Who are we going to see?” she said, walking so dose that had I stopped abruptly, we would have both fallen to the pavement like a pair of unsupported tent poles.

  “Vinny Bacchustelli.”

  Susannah gasped and clutched at my coat sleeve, nearly taking me down. “He’s the brother-in-law?”

  “Yes. Do you know him?” Silly question. I’m not saying my sister is a tramp, but she knows every good-looking man in Bedford County—and come to think of it, half the homely ones as well.

  “Nah. I’m still a married woman, Mags.”

  “Knock me over with a feather and call me Emma Jeanne. Since when did you stop looking at good-looking men?”

  “Since I married Pooky Bear. Really, Mags, I’m not the hooch you think I am.”

  “The what?”

  “The hooch—one of the fallen women, as you like to call them.”

  “Sorry.” I said it without a lot of feeling, because my insensitive sibling had just referred to that miserable mantis of hers as Pooky Bear, a name I invented for my pseudo-husband, Aaron Miller. Sure, Aaron was the slime on the sludge on the ooze at the bottom of the pond, but my pet name for him evoked better times and therefore was—as much as a non-Christian thing can be—sacred.

  “No need to be sorry,” she said blithely. “I just wanted you to know that I’ve changed.”

  I must say her words were some comfort. If only she’d see the light and dump the cold-blooded killer she was married to.

  Archibald Arms has got to be the most luxurious condominium complex west of the Susquehanna. The intertwined As on the outer door are genuine gold leaf, applied by a Greek monk who is an expert iconographer. There was even an article about Father Gregory in the paper.

  The lobby floor and central staircase are marble and so highly polished that one gets the impression that they are perpetually wet. Women visitors, as well as bagpipe players, are advised to wear suitable undergarments.

  The two-story chandelier (which a local wag dubbed “death on a chain”) was assembled from a single casting of Belgian bronze and seven thousand Austrian crystals. The front of the building was constructed after the giant light fixture was in place. The first time the chandelier was turned on, Bedford experienced a three-hour blackout.

  The doormen and women wear red coats that come to their ankles and sport eighty-eight brass buttons apiece. In addition, they must each wear a black satin stovepipe hat and doff it every time they open the outer doors to greet a guest. The front doors, by the way, were carved from Indonesian teak and depict exotic tropical scenes. There are those who are certain they see a naked David Bowie cavorting about beneath the palms. One church even sued to have the doors sanded down. Alas, I have spent many hours studying said doors and can’t see anything but skinny palm trunks.

  Needless to say, the lobby—which is open to the public—has become something of a local attraction. On weekends folks come from as far away as Johnstown to frown at the doors before having them opened by hat-doffing red- coated yeomen.

  Fortunately, Tuesdays are slow days for tourists, and except for a couple from England, we had the lobby and its attendants to ourselves. As the others were leaving, I overheard the husband speaking loudly to his wife.

  “I daresay,” he dared to say, “that was even better than the changing of the guards back home.”

  She was quick to respond. “Yes, much better. We didn’t have crowds of silly Americans to contend with.”

  I cleared my throat in order to get their attention. “With which,” I said pleasantly.

  The wife, who looked surprisingly familiar, was decked out in a massive flowered hat and white gloves. “I beg your pardon?” she chirped.

  “Never end a
sentence with a preposition. You should have said ‘with which to contend.’”

  The woman appeared unreasonably annoyed at my charitable explanation. “Philip, we simply must hurry back to our entourage.”

  “Of course, dear. But may I remind you it was your idea to shake off Scotland Yard for an hour so we could do some sightseeing on our own.”

  I gasped. “Now I know who you are! You’re Her Majesty, the Queen of England, aren’t you?”

  “We are not amused,” the petite woman said, and practically pulled her husband down the front steps and toward the street

  “We’re not amused either,” Susannah said. Despite some people’s opinions of her, my sister has many fine qualities, and loyalty is one of them. Apparently, so is popularity.

  Three doormen rushed to be at our service, each calling out my sister’s name. In turn, Susannah gave each of them a movie star kiss. By that I mean she loudly kissed the airspace in front of both proffered cheeks, but didn’t do any actual laying on of lips. But even this nonphysical demonstration of affection flew in the face of our genetic heritage, and so I can only assume it is something she learned during her brief stint as a Presbyterian.

  “Whom do you wish to see today, Susannah?” The questioner wore a chapeau almost twice as tall as the other stovepipe hats, so I took him to be the head doorman.

  “The usual, Derrick.”

  The usual?

  Derrick, if that was indeed his name, stepped over to the nearest wall and pressed one of many buttons on a brass panel.

  “Yes?” a male voice said.

  Derrick mumbled something unintelligible and then smiled at Susannah. “You know the way,” he said.

  “What was that all about?” I demanded as soon as we stepped into the privacy of an elevator.

  “You’ll see.”

  “I want to know now.”

  Susannah rammed the penthouse button. “Are you impressed yet, Mags?”

  “I still can’t find a naked David Bowie—Wait just one potato-peeling minute! One of those palm trees isn’t a palm tree. Am I right?”

  “You’re a hoot, Mags, you know that?”